The Survival Pack..

Thursday, October 19, 2006

Driving License-On Probation

Everyday is a learning experience for every human being. Today I learned something new, or more appropriate if I say, today I just realised something not so new.

This day I realised that the slowest lane on the highway is the middle lane. The left-most lane has become the medium-speed lane while the right-most lane still remains as it is..,sometimes.I don't quite get it though, I remembered taking that course 'Kursus Pemanduan Berhemah' or something that sounds like it many years back. I recalled that the left-most is the slowest and the right-most being the fastest. What happen to that now?

I noticed today that many road-users love to be on the middle lane unless they are late for appointment or in dire need to do their number 1 call or number 2. Other than that, you can see that a handful of drivers will be oh-so-happy cruising on the midlane even if they know that they are very much slower than that steam-roller steamrolling on their left lane.

Through my observation, most of the time you will only see these kinds moving on the slow (left) lane; tractors, really huge lorries, trailers or buses, old beaten-up cars, and some drivers on probations. I used to see motorcyclist on the left-lane in earlier days, I mean, there are still quite a number of them comfortably riding on the lefties now, but since the 'rempit-boom' hit Malaysia in the last few years, these new-bred motorcylist wouldn't want to be caught dead 'rempitting' on the slow lane.

I can't quite understand this situation. Perhaps it has something to do with the attitude. Is driving on the slow lane a painful humiliation for some? Is it too shameful to admit that 'yes, I am a slow driver, so I should be driving on the left and not in the middle'? Drivers in denial would probably say 'what? Me slow? I ain't slow. Oh we overtook that old strolling cow far behind already, that one ahead of us on the left lane is a different one'. Or maybe some actually think that 'hey, I am driving a machine that costs more than a year of your salary, this baby should not even sniff the left lane, not even during emergencies!' Others who are ignorant would just say 'hell, I don't care. Bite my tail for as long as you want. Unsatisfied? Shift!'.

There is another type of driver which I observed not so many hours ago. Those who drive expensive, luxurious car who treasures their car so much, maybe because of the fact that not only they had spent a fortune on the car, they are actually discounting their daily meals or maybe their wife's or kids' meal in order to own and maintain that car. Or maybe they just want to make sure that all road users would be able to see them in that oh-so-great-a-car. These kind of people would drive real slow no matter where they are. Highway or no highway. And if they are about to run on road humps, they will slow down..., real slow..., till they are no longer slow. They practically stop!

Simply said, there's so many kinds of people out there and with that many types, they also come with so many types of automobile. That makes hundreds of combination of attitudes. E.g. those who wanna drive fast but can't afford it, those who can't drive fast but can afford it, those who can't afford it and won't drive fast, those who can't drive but is driving, etc..etc.. But life's like that. It has got to be very much colourful so that I always have something to bitch about. Little sister can't blame me for this. She's the one telling me that I am a woman with ten mouths.